


Across So Wide a Sea

by Elsane



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Valinor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 21:01:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13198497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsane/pseuds/Elsane
Summary: As the great Noldorin family feud heats up, Finrod and Galadriel have a conversation.





	Across So Wide a Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Imbirart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imbirart/gifts).



> For imbirart, very belatedly, as part of the 2017 Tolkien Secret Santa exchange. Happy New Year!

Finrod came over a rise and caught sight of Artanis at last. Her hair was windswept, a silver cloud in the starlight, and beyond her the dark sea spread to the edge of the sky. She was standing on the low bluff that rose above the shore here, a lonely walk north of Alqualondë, and watching the kittiwakes wheel over the waves, her arms crossed over her chest.

The path ran up over two more gentle rises before it reached Artanis’ overlook. He bent to pick up a handful of pebbles from the path, rough and pale in the starlight, and came up beside her.

"Did Mother send you to fetch me in?" she asked, without turning. Her arms were crossed over her chest.

"Not at all." He offered her a pebble, and she took it. "One for joy," he said, and picked a stone from his handful to throw out into the sea. Maedhros had invented this as a game for children, long ago. As they grew older Maglor, Turgon, and he had made it a game of rhymes and charms. Artanis, much younger, had clamored for Finrod to teach her, and now it had become a private game he and Artanis played together. In idle moments; or to start conversations that looked like they might be delicate.

"One for what may," she said drily, and tossed her own pebble in.

"One for starlight, and one for day: Aegnor has come back from Tirion to stay, and I thought you would like to know."

"That is cheating! And you only gave me one pebble," she said. "Anyway, what you really mean is that you think I have been out here arguing with the wind for long enough, and you want me to come back with you."

"Well, perhaps there is a little bit of that," said Finrod, "but all in all I must say it's much better to argue with the wind than with cousins. Aegnor came in with a split lip and a nasty bruise on his cheek. Mother is furious, and Father is being quietly disappointed as loudly as he can. Aegnor won't say a word about the fight, but his knuckles are bruised, and he says he will never speak to Celegorm in friendship again."

"Oh no, oh, Aegnor," Artanis said -- "it's not surprising, how could it possibly be surprising? I was only surprised he could keep friendship with Celegorm even now. But I am sorry." 

"For Aegnor, or for the honor of our house?"

"Both, how can you doubt it? What will Aegnor say about Tirion?"

"The usual," said Finrod, and threw a stone out into the dark air with extra force, furious that the news Aegnor brought was normal now: angry unsigned slogans scrawled on the Mindon Eldaliéva, mud smeared across the great statue of Manwë in the north square, people who would not walk the sparkling and tree-lined streets without shields. "One for news, and one for rue." It was not worth telling; Artanis could see it from the surface of his mind, or Aegnor's, if she wanted. “As Aegnor tells it, our fiery uncle is now claiming we should all sail east to rule vast realms in Middle-earth. I wish he would take his own advice! It would be much quieter, and then I would not have to map out the allegiance of every house in Tirion simply to walk with Amarië.”

"Is he now!" Artanis looked out to sea again, and her mouth had an unhappy twist to it. 

"What!" he said, laughing at her. Her disdain for Feanor went back centuries, nearly as long as Finrod could recall, and was both absolute and based on nothing more solid than the breeze. He had long teased her for it. "Don't tell me that _you_ wanted to sail east and rule a vast realm in Middle-earth, and are embarrassed that there is one place where you agree with our uncle?"

She flicked him a glance, sidelong, and stooped to pick up a stone from the bluff. "One for a lie, and one that’s true." She hefted it in her hand -- it was heavier than his little pebbles -- and hurled it into the sea, where it vanished with a soft plop. 

He felt a sudden sick jolt in his stomach, as if he had just stepped up onto a stair that crumbled under his foot. "So," he said, softly.

"Not -- vast realms," she said, "but -- Finrod -- you asked why I came home from Ingolnen, and I told you three true things but not the truth. What they teach me there is to shape a fair hour, perhaps, into a fairer one, to gladden the light, to make the breeze light and the air easy -- and this is art, truly, yet to what avail? The teeming Maia of the air would grant all of this already, at the price of a song, or laughter."

She flung up her arms, and the wind roared up before them, carrying the smell of the sea, and with it a swirl of fine sand upward in a great rush, or perhaps it was seaspray, that glittered like half-seen stars; and in this sparkling whirl there seemed to be a white tower, its slender spire proud and breathless, like the Mindon but unlike, reaching up toward something too brilliant to see, and arrayed before it a fierce warning glint, the serried flash of swords, or perhaps the air itself glittering sharply in defiance.

Then she brought her hands down, and the wind fell. Below, over the star-flecked ocean, there was stillness, and then again the cries of the gulls.

"Is that what all of this art is for? To trouble a few kittiwakes and stir the waves against a lonely shore?"

It was a perilous vision and very fair, and it had pulled at him, as if Artanis had caught his own breath up in it; and he did not know whether this was part of her art, or because he too had dreamt, from time to time, of greater glories than what might come to him in gentle summer days. But those were dreams, and he had never once thought of leaving. 

Careful to keep his voice light, he said, "I can think of another use. It would make a great party trick. You could craft wondrous visions at Midsummer, and impress all Valinor with your skill and strength." 

She looked at him gratefully. "Yes, exactly." She picked up another stone, smaller this time, and turned it through her fingers, then let it slip from her hand. 

"One might say that the sheer joy of making is the highest purpose art may have."

"One might," she said; "and thus go on to pity the craftsman who wishes to create works that his workshop does not imagine."

"Hmm," he said. "Will you sail for Middle-Earth, then?"

"What, and miss Mother's feast for Midsummer Eve?" She made a little wistful and self-mocking face that was not quite a smile. "One for yes, and one for no. Give me a stone?" 

"One to stay, and two to go?" he suggested, passing her two pebbles. 

"Let us stick to the game...one to stay, and one to go." She threw both stones hard out over the bluff. In the starlight it was just possible to see both of them hit the water and vanish into the dark crawling waves. They had changed what the sea meant in the game so many times since it had first been invented: it was the living song of the world and would make the stone come true, it was the great cleanser that would wash all burdens and all gifts away, it was the force of nature that held the future and thus might let the future be read. When the game had first started, the sea had simply been a place where children liked to throw stones.

"I would miss you very much," he said. She leaned her head on his shoulder, and he put his arm around hers. After a while, he said, "Let's go back to Alqualondë. I wouldn't mind a hot supper, and Aegnor has not yet had the pleasure of admitting you were right about Celegorm."

"Far be it from me to deny my dear brother such a joy. Yes, I'll come." She looked up at him. "Don't mention this to Mother and Father, will you? It would only upset them."

"Not if you don't want me to." 

"Thank you," she said, and touched his hand. "Let me get my pack."

She went on up the path a little ways, and he stood alone on the bluff for a moment, looking out at the stars. There were only three gulls now, far enough away that they were ghostly and indistinct. 

He had one pebble left, a smallish one, flat on one side. _One for wisdom_ , he said silently, and gave it to the ocean. No rhyme, no charm; just a prayer. The murmur of the waves rolled on steadily, ceaseless and unchanged, and that was in its own way a consolation.

"I'm ready," Artanis said.

"Well," he said; "let's go home."

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for the mismatched names: I have a very hard time using the name 'Galadriel' for her before she reaches Doriath, and thus she is 'Artanis' here. Please forgive the logical inconsistency of using Sindarin names for everyone else -- I confess it makes my head hurt and gives me vapors, but on the other hand so does changing every single name, no matter how briefly mentioned, to Quenya forms that not everyone knows. (As I mostly snort at the exquisite finickry of elf linguists in HoME, this author's note is somewhat embarrassing; I hope ending with a fit of handwringing about linguistic consistency at least adds something to the verisimilitude of the fandom experience.)


End file.
